St. Louis Magazine: New Stadium Costs Higher Than Announced

City taxpayers would pay $215 million more than previously reported for a new NFL stadium in downtown St. Louis under a plan submitted to officials by the stadium task force, headed by Dave Peacock and Bob Blitz.
Documents obtained by St. Louis Magazine through a Sunshine Law request show that the city’s obligations to cover debt retirement would jump from about $6 million per year at present to $9,785,000 in 2020, then increase every year to a staggering $15,975,000 in 2051.
The new obligation, noted in section 4.6 (f) of the proposed agreement, is outlined in an appendix titled “City Event Day Tax Appropriation Amount.”
The new schedule is in addition to another one that essentially mirrors the existing payments made by the city toward payoff of the Edward Jones Dome (about $6 million annually).
The city’s current contribution toward bond payments on the dome would have disappeared after 2021, when the bonds would have been paid in full. But backers of the stadium contend that continuing at approximately that level going forward still reflects no new tax increases.
Most critically, this was a key argument advanced by city officials in arguing against the need to put stadium funding before the voters under an ordinance passed by the Board of Aldermen in 2002.